Bill Hader on Why There Will Never Be a Stefon Movie and What He Thinks of Seth Meyers' New Late Night Gig

In GQ's profile of Bill Hader for our fifth annual comedy issue, the eight-year SNL alum reflected on his time on the storied show—and modeled spring's best polo shirts. In these exclusive GQ.com outtakes, Hader discusses the fate of his most famous character, as well as his travails in the SNL writers' room.

On a Stefon Movie:
There's no emotional through line. Sometimes people say to me "I want a Stefon movie" and I'm like, you think you want a Stefon movie but then you'll see the poster for it and think: "Wait, I don't want this."

On Writing Stefon:
We have this great writing staff, let's see if they can help us. Club takes place in a soup can or a church....not really funny, what could it be? and someone will say "what about a disabled submarine?" and John goes "on a diaper" and I'm like "yeah, on a diaper, that's it" and everyone will be like whaaat? People will throw out things and then John and I would be like no, it's "Donald Duck having a Vietnam nightmare, that's better." And they're like WHY ARE WE EVEN HERE? We're not laughing that much.

On His Favorite Performances:
I always like good actors, people who can do both comedy and drama. You look at Paul Muni in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and then Scarface or Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver and then Midnight Run. Watch Michael Keaton in Mr. Mom or Beetlejuice and then see Clean and Sober.

On Learning the SNL Writer's Room:
When I started I was like over here's what I find funny and over here's what the show finds funny and they were way apart. Not that I couldn't fit in. Just meaning I have my own sensibility and the show has its sensibility that's been there for 40 years. It took me a while to figure out the Venn diagram, to get the confidence to figure it out.

On What He's Learned at SNL:
When people tell you what doesn't work, they're usually right. When they tell you how to fix it, they're usually wrong. A good lesson was the first time we wrote Vincent Price, we wrote him in a Thanksgiving Day special and he was berating everyone who came on the show. And it got picked and I was so excited and nervous and Friday night at 1 a.m. before the show I get a call from Lorne and he wanted to see me in his office. And Lorne was like "I'm going over this sketch and it doesn't work. It makes no sense. Why would any of these people come on this show? I don't get it. He's just torturing them." And I was like "Because it's funny and it's Vincent Price and it's just absurd?" And Lorne said, "There's no logic. It works if you have your own show and they come on the show and if they come in and screw it up, then it logically makes sense for me." And so now everyone's scoring. And I was like "So....we're not doing it?" and he was like "No, we have to do it, it's our Thanksgiving sketch. Go rewrite it. So we stayed up until 5 a.m. rewriting it and we did it on air that day with Eva Longoria."

On His Plans for the Future:
Sleep. Spending time with my family. A new set of concerns. Heading back to LA. I met my wife in California and lived out there before this. We have good friends out there.

On Seth Meyers' New Gig as the Host of Late Night:
When I heard the news I started clapping—you know, just by myself, clapping. It's amazing. He is the perfect fit. I've watched as SNL hosts come into our office and we pitch them ideas and Seth is always at ease with them. He's naturally and genuinely curious about people. And he really is such a funny writer. I've learned more from him about sketch comedy than probably anybody.